


Paris

by rendawnie



Series: Delays, Departures & Arrivals [1]
Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Airports, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Awkwardness, Casual Sex, Fashion & Couture, Feelings, First Meetings, Flirting, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Getting to Know Each Other, Hook-Up, Humor, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mild Smut, Modeling, Quickies, World Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-15 22:16:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10558588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rendawnie/pseuds/rendawnie
Summary: The first thing he sees when he reluctantly squints one eyelid open is a face, way too close to his own. It's a good face, but that's not really the point, right now. Hyungwon is always surrounded by good faces. They rarely affect him anymore.





	

****There are never comfortable chairs, anywhere in an airport. Not outside the building, not in the terminal, and even the nicest restaurants have booths that seem designed to be a literal pain in the ass. This is an indisputable fact that Hyungwon has become too familiar with, in the last year since his career took off. He just wants to sleep, just for a minute, or fifteen. That's all he ever wants to do.

He's not even sure anymore which airport this is, which is bad, because he's traveling alone for today. He'll meet up with his manager tomorrow, or maybe the next day, provided that the next day is Friday, and that he gets himself where he needs to be, by then.

Hyungwon could check his phone, he supposes. The itinerary is probably in there somewhere. He could look up and around, at the signs posted in the terminal. But he's finally achieved the highest level of comfort to be found in the last three airports, across the last three countries he's worked in, and so instead, Hyungwon yanks the brim of his hat down further and concentrates on keeping his long limbs pulled into what would be a completely embarrassing fetal position on the dirty carpet, if he wasn't so exhausted.

“It's a fucking drag, huh.”

The voice is coming from somewhere above him, because he's literally on the ground. Hyungwon decides he imagined it. It's a hallucination, clearly, brought on by fatigue and designed to keep him from getting any rest, so he ignores it.

“I can tell you're awake.”

Hyungwon sighs, kind of. He tries. “Go away,” he mutters uselessly, his voice hoarse and low. He zips his ridiculous, puffy, thousand dollar jacket up all the way to his nose and squeezes his eyes shut even tighter, as if that'll help.

A second later, there's a light _thump_ next to him, and another, and Hyungwon guesses that instead of waiting for a third, he'd better open his eyes and get rid of the problem before he slips entirely into sleep-deprived insanity.

The first thing he sees when he reluctantly squints one eyelid open is a face, way too close to his own. It's a good face, but that's not really the point, right now. Hyungwon is always surrounded by good faces. They rarely affect him anymore.

The face smiles, cheek resting against a backpack. Hyungwon barely has to look to know that it's Burberry, part of a collection that won't be available until next season. It wouldn't matter, except that it means that the face belongs to a model. Like him.

Hyungwon rolls his eyes as best he can, sitting up with what he can only hope is an appropriate air of disdain. It's hard to tell, when he's hungover and headachy.

“Fuck,” he croaks out, and he meant to say _what the fuck,_ he definitely did, he just didn't quite get there. It's all the face’s fault.

Hyungwon rubs his eyes blearily. Next to him, the face attached to the guy sits up too, and he's still smiling, and it's absolutely obnoxious.

“Lee Minhyuk. I know you. We just did Armani together for Fashion Week, yesterday.”

A clue. Hyungwon’s probably still in Paris, then, it's probably still the morning after the afterparty, and that at least explains why he wants to go back to bed even more than usual.

He blinks at Minhyuk, taking in the face again with slightly less apathy. He remembers now. Minhyuk closed the show last night, walking the runway in the Next Big Suit. Hyungwon had watched from backstage, watched the way Minhyuk flirted his way down and back that slender path, dancing his detached gaze over the audience until there wasn't a dry seat in the house.

Flirting isn't Hyungwon’s thing. He's a dyed in the Donna Karan wool Ice Prince, specializing in stoicism and faintly constipated couture glaring. It's fine. It works. It _is_ working, he's getting work. He's definitely not jealous of models like Minhyuk, who glow their effortless, effervescent light through every show.

Definitely not.

“Hyungwon,” he grumbles, because _whatever,_ whatever will speed this interaction along.

Minhyuk smiles wider. He's got pretty teeth, too. Hyungwon wonders when he started to notice things like that in people.

“Where are you headed? I'm off to New York City next. I got here super early so I have, like, hours and hours to wait, and you look like you could use some company,” Minhyuk says, and Hyungwon can't quite stop himself from snorting.

“The hell gave you that impression? Was it the way I was ignoring you, trying to get some sleep?” he snarks.

Seemingly unbothered by Hyungwon’s stellar social skills, Minhyuk just laughs, digging through his backpack. “You're hungover,” he asserts, the words muffled by his plane ticket, clutched between his teeth as he paws through the bag.

Hyungwon is out of jabs for the moment, so he just kind of stares, dumbfounded. “Aren’t _you_?” he questions curiously. “I'm pretty sure I saw you doing body shots off at least twenty people last night until you'd wasted an entire bottle of Moet.”

Minhyuk chuckles, dislodging a bottle of aspirin from his messy belongings and shoving his ticket into the backpack before he answers. “I don't get hangovers. And I don't think any of that champagne went to waste,” he counters, gifting Hyungwon with a wink and three pills, shaken from the container. He offers Hyungwon a bottle of water, and Hyungwon doesn't know why he accepts it, except that maybe the delirium is coming on faster than he’d anticipated, but he tosses the pills down his throat and chases them down with water and he's finally staring at the signs in the vicinity when he belatedly replies, “I don't know where I'm going.”

Minhyuk clicks his tongue disapprovingly, running a hand through his white-blonde hair before reaching it out between them, palm turned up. “Give me your phone.”

Hyungwon wrinkles his nose. “No?”

Minhyuk rolls his eyes. “Gimme it. I'm trying to help you.”

Hyungwon is tired. He's slow on the uptake. It's barely a struggle, really, before his phone, cracked screen and all, rests in Minhyuk’s hands and he's scrolling through it and pressing buttons on the screen. Hyungwon tries to remember if there are any nude selfies on it at present that Minhyuk could possibly be confronted with, but the thinking makes his head hurt worse, and he stops.

It takes less than thirty seconds for Minhyuk to find what he's looking for, and he nods, satisfied. “You're going to Sydney. Your flight’s not for a few hours, either.”

“Oh,” Hyungwon says.

“Your manager is meeting you there tomorrow. You have two jobs. Then home to Seoul.”

“Oh.”

Minhyuk gives him the phone back, and there's a few beats of silence between them before Hyungwon recalls how to carry on a conversation.

“Don't you travel with a manager?” he asks, not even sure why he cares. He _doesn't_ care. He doesn't.

Minhyuk shrugs. “I dunno, sometimes. I like traveling on my own. It's more of an adventure that way.”

Hyungwon frowns. “Doing this alone scares the shit out of me,” he says without thinking, because his limited filter has left the building, and possibly the planet.

When he glances up and meets Minhyuk’s eyes again, he doesn't see pity, or amusement. He's just kind of watching Hyungwon, considering him, and then Minhyuk smiles softly and announces, “Come on. You need food.”

Hyungwon doesn't know what to expect. There are a lot of options dotting the halls of the terminal. He wonders if Minhyuk is going to lead him to the nearest bar. Only if he’s paying, hopefully. Anyway, there are a lot of options, and somehow, the only one that Hyungwon isn't expecting is McDonald's.

He doesn't eat at McDonald's. He doesn't eat a lot, period, because of his job, so when Minhyuk deposits him at a booth and jogs to the counter to order, Hyungwon tunes out the conversation he's having with the cashier somewhere around the second Super Size fry o'clock. It's not like it matters what Minhyuk orders. Hyungwon is unlikely to consume any of it.

Hyungwon is nearly asleep again, head resting on the cool fake wood table in front of him, when Minhyuk unceremoniously plunks a tray down right next to his head, and he groans, propping himself up yet again in less than half an hour's time to face the ongoing cheerfulness of Lee Minhyuk. He should stop doing that, maybe. In the Hierarchy of Hyungwon, Minhyuk is most definitely below a good nap.

“Here,” Minhyuk chirps sunnily. “Double cheeseburger with extra everything. It'll soak up your hangover.”

Hyungwon stares at the closed box. It smells good, or it at least smells like something sinfully forbidden, a luxury he hasn’t allowed himself in a very long time. He stares at the box, and then he stares up at Minhyuk, happily tossing fries into his open mouth a handful at a time.

“You eat this stuff?” Hyungwon asks incredulously.

Minhyuk swallows, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. It’s less than dainty, a far cry from the poised, composed model Hyungwon is slowly starting to forget is one and the same with this person, seated across the table from him.

“Yeah, dude. I eat food. It’s great. You should try it,” Minhyuk says between slurps off his drink. It’s probably a real, honest-to-goodness Coke, Hyungwon realizes with more than a little jealousy.

“I eat _food,_ ” he protests, frowning. “I eat salad all the time. Constantly.”

Minhyuk rolls his eyes. “Rabbit food. Just eat the burger and work it off later. This airport has one of the best gyms of all the ones I’ve been to.”

Hyungwon’s jaw drops. “There’s gyms? In _airports_??”

Minhyuk laughs, setting the empty fry carton aside and flipping open the first of two burgers lined up in front of him. “Did you seriously not know that? Of course there are. I like the one in Stockholm best. They have a killer treadmill. Thing’s got more buttons and settings than my laptop.”

Hyungwon is silent, staring at the box full of cheeseburger again.

Minhyuk eyes him suspiciously. “You don’t work out?”

Hyungwon shrugs. “I worked out once. It was awful.”

The suspicious eyes Minhyuk’s giving him widen in surprise. “But you’re so skinny! God, I’m envious. A little, I guess. But if it’s at the expense of gloriously shitty airport food, then again, maybe not,” he decides. There’s mustard on one side of his pretty face. It’s oddly endearing. Hyungwon doesn’t mention it. He doesn’t mention anything, actually, letting the silence drag on and on until Minhyuk breaks it again. Hyungwon is starting to notice that Minhyuk doesn’t like silence very much.

“Seriously, though, you should eat more. Salad is all well and fine, but you need meat. All kinds of meat, all up in your mouth,” he says, and Hyungwon sees the moment where it dawns on him exactly what he’s said, and exactly how many ways Hyungwon could take the comment, and as he keeps looking, he sees the moment Minhyuk stops caring and winks instead. Another wink.

Hyungwon knows Minhyuk is a flirt. He’s heard stories, whispers throughout nearly all the backstages of all the shows they’ve worked together, but not _together._ Lee Minhyuk, professional model and semi-pro boytoy to anyone who’s available and interested.

It’s not like Hyungwon does badly for himself. He gets a little, here and there. Hoseok is always around when he gets back to Seoul, and they don’t have to talk when he flies out, don’t have to pretend it’s something it isn’t. It’s enough. It’s fine. Hyungwon’s fine.

Defiantly, Hyungwon flips the burger box open, and even the _steam_ smells like the best orgasm he’s never had. He’s tired enough, this whole situation is weird enough, and y’know what? Fuck it. This is happening. Minhyuk is happening, and maybe if Hyungwon just eats the damn cheeseburger, he’ll find it within himself to stop acting like it’s bothering him that much, because the truth is, it’s nice. It’s nice, the company. The way Minhyuk looks at him, sizing him up, trying to figure out what’ll seduce him. Hyungwon still can’t tell if he’s trying for conversational seduction, or actual seduction. If only he knew that the aroma of fast food was more than enough to get Hyungwon started either way, right now.

Hyungwon starts to fade out a little after that, because he’s doing it, he’s taking the first bite and there’s no stopping him now and somewhere in the back of his mind, he wonders if he’s actually got a boner, or if he cares. Minhyuk doesn’t care, or he doesn’t notice. He’s chattering on and on, talking about Prada and McQueen and opening Gucci and all sorts of things Hyungwon is still working towards in his career, and then suddenly it changes and he’s talking about home, or close to it. He’s talking about Seoul, about how much he misses ddeokbokki and the way downtown Seoul smells, and Hyungwon has finished his cheeseburger and half the fries by the time his headache eases up and the fog lifts enough to let him think clearly, and maybe participate in the conversation.

He doesn’t at first, he just watches. Hyungwon is good at observing. It’s his preferred mode of operation. So, he observes Minhyuk, sitting across from him in a booth at an airport McDonald’s thousands of miles away from their home.

Minhyuk laughs easily, and smiles even easier. His eyes light up when he talks about modeling, about fashion, but he’s dressed in sweatpants and a sweater with a coffee stain on the front. Hyungwon kind of likes that juxtaposition, even if it’s a little embarrassing. Minhyuk is a little embarrassing in general. He’s loud and vivacious, prone to gesticulation and Hyungwon wonders if he understands how brightly he shines without trying. He watches the moments in between the bravado closest, the ones where Minhyuk stops to take a breath or a sip of his soda, and a little blush crawls up his neck to his cheeks, his smiles smaller and shyer.

After they’ve eaten all the food, and Minhyuk has successfully forced two hot apple pies into Hyungwon’s full stomach on top of it, Hyungwon is sleepy again. He never really stopped being sleepy, he just forgot for a while, while Minhyuk was...Minhyuk. But, sitting on his side of the table, Minhyuk’s quieter now, less of everything, but somehow more of it all.

The delirium has definitely set in for Hyungwon. First the exhaustion, and the hangover, and then the fast food, and it’s all too much. That’s the only logical explanation for the four real smiles Minhyuk’s drawn out of him so far, when Hyungwon doesn’t smile for anyone, ever.

Hyungwon’s not sure how many silent minutes Minhyuk fidgets through before he clears his throat and asks, in a voice lower and huskier than anything Hyungwon’s heard out of him yet, “So, you wanna find a bathroom or something and do this?”

Now Hyungwon’s just puzzled, because he’s had a lot of fast food and his brain is fuzzy and he’s not sure what the hell Minhyuk’s talking about, what “this” he’s referring to. He’s fairly sure there hasn’t been any _this_ brought up or discussed. He raises an eyebrow at Minhyuk, still fidgeting, and Minhyuk chuckles, biting his lip.

“This. Uh. Y’know? We could...help each other out? Just…’cause we’re in the same situation, all this traveling and it gets, like, pent up and whatnot, and then you just...and you try to handle it but like, it’s not handle-able at all, and then you’re fucking grouchy all the time and all your coworkers hate you so you try extra hard to be sunshiney as hell but really you...I mean, it’s like...explode?”

Even though it makes very little sense, any of Minhyuk’s rant, Hyungwon thinks he understands it all.

He’s positive he got the general gist of it correct when he finds himself pressed against one side of the bathroom stall in the not even a little empty facilities Minhyuk pushed him into less than a minute prior, and Minhyuk is sinking to his knees and unzipping Hyungwon and pulling him out of his ridiculously impractical leather pants while Hyungwon bites his fist to keep quiet. It takes less than ten minutes more before both of them have been “helped out” to the highest degree of satisfaction they can get in an airport bathroom, Minhyuk still bent over the toilet and panting breathlessly as Hyungwon stumbles back towards the door, already rolling the condom down and off, because this isn’t his first rodeo. Just the first one in their current surroundings.

Minhyuk straightens up a minute later, stretching his arms towards the ceiling and arching his still bare backside in Hyungwon’s direction. “Fuck. Needed that,” he mumbles, twisting his body and shaking his limbs out gracelessly before he finally gets around to pulling his sweatpants back into place. Hyungwon looks away and finishes cleaning himself up, tugging his own pants back up where they belong.

When Minhyuk turns around, his face is flushed and his hair’s a mess from where Hyungwon grabbed it, the sleeves of his sweater obscuring his hands completely, and Hyungwon’s brain doesn’t catch up quite quick enough to stop his arm from reaching out, his fingers smoothing themselves through Minhyuk’s hair gently to set it as right as it can get. Minhyuk lets him wordlessly, leaning against the wall with a sated little smile on his face, and it’s all very sweet and intimate for two near-strangers having just fucked in an airport toilet stall, so Hyungwon pulls his hand back before he really wants to. Minhyuk laughs quietly, the sound faraway and dreamy. He leans down and picks up his backpack, extracting his phone from a side pocket.

“You should give me your number. We’ll probably pass through the same places again,” he says, and he doesn’t add any more words onto the sentence, but Hyungwon hears them anyway. _We could probably help each other out again._

He nods, reciting the numbers out for Minhyuk to type into his phone and save, and Minhyuk sends him a text so he'll have his number too, some elaborate emoticon Hyungwon has no idea how to make, especially not as fast as Minhyuk put it together, and then Minhyuk unlocks the stall door and they make their way back out into the terminal.

Hyungwon’s flight leaves first, so Minhyuk walks him to his gate, even though he didn’t ask him to. He’s an adult, after all. Just because he’s mildly (okay, _very_ ) uncomfortable traveling alone, doesn’t mean his legs don’t work. They do, kind of. He’s regaining feeling in them, after the bathroom quickie. They’re still a little tingly.

Minhyuk stands there with Hyungwon as all the boarding zones are called. Hyungwon’s in the very last one, naturally, because that’s what he can afford. He wonders if Minhyuk always travels first class, doing body shots of expensive champagne off the flight attendants.

Finally, they call his group to board, and Hyungwon glances at Minhyuk. “Okay...well...this has been...yeah,” he says after a long while, too long, because all the other words he came up with were too much.

“Yeah,” Minhyuk echoes, and Hyungwon thinks his smile seems a little regretful. He wonders if he was bad at the sex they had, after all, then he decides not to worry about it. Hoseok’ll tell him he’s good, when they see each other again. And it’ll be enough.

Hyungwon turns and starts to walk away, towards the doors that lead to the mobile walkway that leads to the plane that leads to Sydney, and he thinks he hears Minhyuk yell, “I’ll text you!”, but he keeps walking, so Minhyuk doesn’t see him grin.

He settles into his middle seat, surrounded on both sides by a lady with a baby and an old man with a snoring problem, and checks his phone one last time before takeoff. Just then, a new text comes through, but it isn’t another message from Minhyuk.

 

**_< Hoseok, 2:41pm  > back in town monday rite? see u then x_ **

 

Hyungwon turns his phone to airplane mode without answering.

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, uh...[Tumblr?](http://bulletproof-bad-writing.tumblr.com)


End file.
